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HP EliteBook Revolve hands on review

FRANKFURT: HP's "one more thing" moment at its annual Discover event on Wednesday turned out to be the unveiling of another Windows 8 device, this time the tablet/laptop hybrid EliteBook Revolve.

The device, as the name suggests, features a swivel screen that can be laid down on top of the laptop's keyboard to turn it into a standard tablet device, akin to the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga. HP is betting that users' need for the functionality of a keyboard and the ease of use of a touchscreen is set to grow.

The firm's vice president of design Stacy Wolff had shown off the device on stage, touting the importance of visually alluring products and a thin design. Certainly in our brief hands on with the device - locked to a display stand - it had both those elements.

It was light enough to seem that you'd be happy to carry it around all day in a bag and use as and when necessary while it had a nice simple but clean design, not that dissimilar to an Apple MacBook.

The swivel function seemed easy to use, making it quick and efficient to turn the device into a tablet at a moment's notice, and remaining thin enough to be functional and portable.

Annoyingly, for an unknown reason, the device on display was not touch-enabled, despite the device being set to have his capability when it launches in March next year, in the US at least.

The driver appeared to be missing when we did some quick spec checks via the control panel, so we weren't able to test out Windows 8 in all its touch-enabled glory which was a shame. But we used the mouse pad when in laptop mode, and it all seemed to run smoothly.

The device we were playing with had an Intel Core i3 1.8GHz processor and so was fast to use, switching between apps effortlessly, while it also had 8GB of RAM and was running a 64-bit version of Windows 8.

Clearly these are some decent specs and HP is no doubt hoping it can lure enterprise customers plumping for Windows 8, as it seeks to regain its position as the number one PC vendor, at least in the enterprise market, despite competition from the iPad and other rivals.

We didn't have enough time to form a definitive opinion on the device but certainly the crowds standing around were keen to have a play and the ease everyone seemed to have turning it from a laptop to a tablet and back again that we saw suggested it could prove popular.